Ten great novels of intrigue of all time.
The genre noir has almost two centuries of existence, since Edgar Allan Poe gave life to the commissioner August Dupin, in The Crimes of Morgue Street in the middle of the XNUMXth century.
Choosing ten novels is an impossible task, especially when most of the authors are creators of great sagas, where choosing one can only be done leaving the role to chance. This selection is only the reflection of a moment. The ten novels that I want to reread today. It is an anarchic compendium, in which its members have more than a century of difference between them. In any case, they are all great works. All of them, great company for an autumn afternoon.
Agatha Christie Eternal Night.
Neither Miss Marple nor Poirot in this novel different from the usual line of my reference writer. A story of intrigue in which no one dies until the end and that manages to turn an idyllic situation into a plot of constant tension without spilling a single drop of blood.
Eternal Night is the story of a loving couple from different social classes who buy a house in the country, told in the first person by the protagonist.
Paula Hawkins's girl on the train.
An alcoholic woman goes to work every day on the morning train to London and gets drunk every afternoon in her apartment. One morning, with his usual hangover, he witnessed something strange from the train in what was his old house, where his ex-husband now lives with his new wife and their daughter. The doubts about herself, the fight against alcohol and the capacity to fall and get up of the protagonist, make this novel something more than a good plot of intrigue.
Seven Books for Eva by Roberto Martínez Guzmán.
A kidnapping, a kidnapper who brings books to his hostage and a family history full of secrets and psychological violence, will lead Eva Santiago to become a police inspector. Family secrets and police investigation are mixed to build a fast-paced story that immerses us in the ins and outs of psychological abuse.
The Waters of Eternal Youth, by Donna Leon
From the hand of the brilliant Commissioner Brunetti, we hear the story of a thirty-year-old woman, with an irreversible brain injury, since, at the age of fifteen, she was about to die drowned in one of the canals of Venice. The fall was closed as a suicide attempt, but his grandmother never believed that hypothesis. The only witness who confirms Grandma's suspicions is a drunkard with disturbed memories.
A story that, without explicit violence, shows the extreme harshness of a promising life spoiled and imprisoned in the aftermath of a brain injury.
The little brother of Jose María Guelbenzu.
The corpse of a model with severed hands revolutionizes Gijón. The investigating judge in charge, Mariana de Marco, protagonist of the great Jose María Guelbenzu saga, will combine the investigation, with the visit of her little brother, the judge's weakness, an attractive and friendly man, with great pleasure for money and very little to earn it by working.
Puerto Escondido by María Oruña
Masterfully set in Suances, a tourist town on the Cantabrian coast, the novel begins with the appearance of the corpse of a baby between the walls of a mansion undergoing renovation. The body dates from the civil war. The owner of the house, Oliver, has just enough money to open a little hotel and the work stoppage means that he suffocates between loans. Valentina Redondo, lieutenant of the Civil Guard, will face a series of murders that are triggered after the unusual discovery.
Talión by Santiago Díaz Cortés
A journalist with no family or close relationships, she is the protagonist of a fast-paced story. Her doctor diagnoses her with an incurable brain tumor and estimates her two months to live. With no one to dedicate that time to, she decides to clean up the world before she leaves: white women dealers, drug dealers or ETA terrorists will be the ones chosen to leave the world before her.
Hitchcock, the great film director, who popularized great novels of the genre.
Rebecca from Daphne du Maurier.
After being widowed, Maxim de Winter marries a woman younger than him. Once settled in the Winter mansion, Manderley, the presence of his dead wife will become more intense every day.
An almost terrifying psychological intrigue novel masterfully made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock. A housekeeper unwilling to let anyone take the place of the old mistress, the innocence of youth, and a police investigation into Maxim de Winter for Rebecca's murder are about to drive his new wife insane. .
Strangers on a train. Patricia highsmith
Two troubled strangers meet on a train and strike a bloody deal.
One of them will kill the other's wife. The second, in return, will kill the father of the first. Two perfect crimes, committed by two people for no reason or relation to the murdered.
Also taken to the cinema by Alfred Hitchcock, it became one of the great classics of cinema and literature.
The Chinese shadow of George Simenon
Starring the unforgettable commissioner Maigret, it is set in Paris, in an incomparable setting: a building on the Place des Vosges, where a wealthy businessman is found assassinated. All the neighbors are suspects.